Merry Christmas!!!!

Hope all is having a Merry Christmas. We got up early and did stockings in bed. Then we opened presents. My wife prepared a delicious french toast casserole that we ate after reading Luke 2:1-20. And finally, we wrapped things up by singing Angels We Have Heard on High. Now time to play!!

I wanted to leave you with a quote from Athanasius' book entitled De Incarnatione Verbi Dei. This particular paragraph stuck with me when I read it late last night before bed. It is the first paragraph of chapter two entitled, The Divine Dilemma and Its Solution in the Incarnation.

"We saw in the last chapter that, because death and corruption were gaining ever firmer hold on them, the human race was in process of destruction. Man, who was created in God's image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself, was disappearing, and the work of God was being undone. The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth both monstrous and unfitting. It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption.

It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. As, then, the creatures whom He had created reasonable, like the Word, were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being Good, to do? Was He to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifference to the ruin of His own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had never created men at all. It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it wold be unfitting and unworthy of Himself."

......to which I might add...... PRAISE GOD HE DID NOT LEAVE US CARRIED OFF BY CORRUPTION, BUT SENT HIS SON AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR SINNERS!

It is truly a blessing to pastor at Grace Chapel. Thank you all for your tremendous gift (and gifts to our children). We love you all. You all are GIFTS to us.

Pastor Andy
Corie, Gracie, and Jackson